


I Wish You'd Call Me Harry

by Tapeworrm



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Character Study, Emotional, First Kiss, Kissing, M/M, Name Kink??, Period Typical Attitudes, Pining, Yearning, and way too much about mcdonald's broad shoulders im sorry, ep 5 extended scene tbh, hmm, lots of feelings being explored by goodsir of course, love how goodsir asks to be known and then it cuts to two canon gay charas, mcdonald being warm and handsome, not explicit but implied in some places, scottish goodsir, surgical metaphors galore, the kinkiness of being known, they are just in love okay, very soft, way too many commas and over-use of the word 'warm' and flowery metaphors, what actually happened after the 'I wish you'd call me Harry scene'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29645751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tapeworrm/pseuds/Tapeworrm
Summary: “Well…now we are acquainted, Harry”His soft voice spoke from deep within his chest, it seemed to nearly vibrate out of him and wash over Harry, prickling the hairs on his arms and neck with a strange tingling.Almost drowsily from it, Harry lifted his eyes once more to meet the man’s above him....The extended Ep. 5 scene where Goodsir asks Dr. McDonald to call him Harry.
Relationships: Harry D. S. Goodsir/Alexander McDonald
Comments: 8
Kudos: 9





	I Wish You'd Call Me Harry

“I wish you’d call me Harry” he called out tentatively, almost in quiet desperation at the sight of Dr. McDonald’s back as he made to leave the room.

Suddenly feeling a pull of uneasiness as he had said it, his voice sounding shamefully soft and meek to his own ears.

The Doctor now stood stopped still in his tracks.

The room fell quiet, and with its closed in walls it was deafening. Goodsir felt his heart hammering against his chest, numb heat flooding his neck and face, _have you taken a step too far?_

He clutched the rag he was holding until his knuckles went white.

There came a grand chuckle from the man, and it sent a white-hot jolt of momentary embarrassment through Goodsir’s body, a primal response he had nurtured towards being laughed at. But alas as he watched McDonald turn to face him, still wearing that look of bright friendliness that he rarely went without, warm relief flushed out the prospect of humiliation.

He was evidently too used to the cool and callous company of Dr. Stanley and he made a note to relax a little. _This man is different_ rang in his mind.

“Well, I might call you Doctor.” He paused, his laugh still alive within his mouth, eyes meeting Goodsir’s with purpose and he lowered his voice to a steady, serious octave “You’re sounding very like one to me just now.”

Goodsir immediately felt his face smile in response, a subordinate tick perhaps, but that name is not what he had wanted and the weight of it settled deep in his stomach before he could stop it.

A stone dropped into a lake, sinking there in his gut.

It was a response one expects from a fellow colleague, not a friend. And that was fine. They _were_ colleagues, and Goodsir was happy for that. But Doctor was not what he had requested.

Doctor was for men like Dr. Stanley who left no room in his heart for anything other than his work. Who was utterly unknown to Goodsir apart from the fact he was a Doctor and a man. No, Goodsir wanted to be _known_. To become corporeal in this twisting world of titles and status, to become a somebody rather than a disembody. Otherwise, what separated him from those very same syphilitic cadavers he had dissected in his training days? Unknown, just a body. Rotting and alone, only _known_ because they were being cut open. Should he have to wait until someone opened him up with a knife before he could have his heart exposed for all to see?

He found himself unable to open his mouth, unable to speak a response, a settling feeling of disappointment and rejection constricting his throat.

He offered a weak smile. One he hoped made him look flattered. He _was_ flattered. It was a compliment from such a captivating medical man as he, and yet it didn’t _feel_ right. It wasn’t enough.

He cast his eyes down to the rag in his hands, almost bashful. He found he couldn’t look at McDonald any longer.

He tried to give one last reassuring look, really hoping to cement his gratitude, but returned his gaze back to his hands as swiftly has he had attempted it.

He had discovered whilst being on board _Terror_ that he found the Doctor rather difficult to look at directly even on his best days, he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was like looking into the sun.

He would blind him.

Hot and bright and unable to get the burning impression of him out from the backs of his eyelids for the rest of his life, there every time he shut his eyes.

Was he like Icarus in that he wished to get closer to this sun and failed miserably, hubris melting his hopeful wings? Yet, Icarus still longed for the sun. Something painful convulsed in Goodsir’s gut, like fishhooks pulling in him, at the thought.

McDonald still stood in the room; his presence would have been looming if it wasn’t that Goodsir knew him to be such a gentle man. The vague shape of him in Goodsir’s peripheral made his heart gallop a little, his face heat a little. Wasn’t he on his way out?

He began to pick a loose thread from the rag in his hands.

“Is that what you really want, Mr. Goodsir? I see no harm in it, then.”

There was a brief moment and then McDonald began to move towards him, Goodsir lifted his head in response, feeling himself stop breathing, anticipation writhed inside of him.

He could only watch as the Doctor stopped about an inch away from him looking carefully down at him, eyes sharp and intelligent.

Goodsir nearly took a step back but found himself rooted to the spot helplessly, perhaps stricken by curiosity rather than fear. Or maybe both feelings at the same time. Fearfully curious, curiously afraid.

His hands so tight around the rag now that they were numb to him. In fact, he felt numb from the neck down, only a thudding pulse in his temples.

His eyes growing impossibly big gazing up at the man in front of him. A startled rabbit before a beautiful fox. Except something told Goodsir there was nothing predatory about this man.

There was a second where the two men just looked at each other, to Goodsir it felt like a lifetime of not breathing, his heart hammering.

McDonald’s face was warm and inviting and so close to him now his whole frame overshadowed Goodsir’s almost entirely, broad shouldered and tall, his head nearly grazing the lopsided ceiling above. But there was no malice in it. It was so irresistibly comforting, as though he could envelop him into the darkness of his being, swallow him whole in a world of musk and warmth and safety. Far different from the imposing frame of Dr. Stanley, a man of bulk and surgeon’s strength.

McDonald smiled fondly down at him,

“Harry it is, then.”

Suddenly it was as though there was a bright light shining inside of Harry, that sun he admired filling him so entirely and so warmly all at once that he nearly gasped.

He felt his face flush with energy and his mouth pulled itself into a real, whole smile.

The first proper smile he had experienced for a long time, with all the torment of daily worries. It broke open his entire face to McDonald, sparkled in his eyes and escaped in a light dancing laugh. He found himself not only opened by his smile but opened by the acceptance. To hear his name uttered from another living person on this voyage for the first time.

To hear his name in another’s mouth, to know he really existed. He was corporeal, he was embodied, he was Harry.

And oh, how delightful his name sounded on this man’s tongue. So softly he spoke, and how the double ‘R’s curled almost imperceptibly with his Scottish lilt, a gentle sound low in his mouth. It was the way he recognised his Scottish family saying his name when he had been home. The sound was so nostalgic and instantly recognisable, spilling from this man with familiar comfort. As though hearing your name somewhere far off in dreams of home, only to wake up and be alone.

Like his name was destined to be said by this man all along, pieces of a puzzle fitting together, filling a hole within him that he hadn’t even been aware of.

That yearning for home.

“Thank you, Doctor …I…” But he found himself speechless.

He only laughed breathlessly and continued to stare up at McDonald, as though the man was pulling him in by some unknown and lovely force.

He could have heard his name from those lips over, and over, and over again, he would have willingly dropped to his knees and prostrated before this man if it meant he could hear him say his name again, he would martyr himself for that end.

He felt greedy for it.

“Oh, come now, Harry, you can call me Alexander, aye? ‘tis only fair now.” His voice settled just above a soft whisper, warm and smooth. He mirrored Harry’s smile handsomely and let loose a quiet laugh, looking down at Harry with his eyes alight from yellow lamplight.

Harry felt almost dizzy with elation, so hot and light it ran through him, shooting to the top of his skull, almost swooning.

“Alexander…” Harry uttered almost dreamily, feeling out the word on his tongue.

Looking up at this man, it was name which suited him perfectly, though he feared it felt a little awkward coming out of his mouth. The very name was associated in Harry’s mind with nobility and grace and greatness, and this feeling didn’t waver when he looked up at the Doctor. His eyes warm, his face handsome, an air of complete gentleness and elegance about him regardless of his Scottish origins or his profession in the butchering art.

Harry always assumed his own roots made him appear brash and aggressive, and so made a painstaking effort to present himself as ‘English’ as possible to the Englishmen around him, despite his canny attitude slipping out here and there. But as he looked at Alexander, he saw no brashness, nothing canny or brutish about him like so many would assume from his surname and birthplace.

This was a man of intellect and unrelenting friendliness, even his Scottish lilt lent his speech softness and warmth. Harry found himself wanting to be less of the crafted Englishmen he had created for himself, to drop that mask away and join with Alexander in his unapologetic Scottishness, in gentle acceptance. He felt a desperate pull of home sickness deep in his gut. 

“Alexander” he repeated to himself, airily, barely a sound. Moving his lips around the name, face flushing with it.

A small laugh hummed from Alexander’s throat, indicating that he had in fact heard every word and Harry felt immediately guilty, having lost himself so easily.

His eyes found the Doctor again from where he had been gazing into thin air and felt an instant rush of light though him as Alexander met his gaze, hopelessly captivated, staring down at him with a hint of shyness in his face, just the hint of colour in those handsome cheeks. Harry swallowed thickly at the sight, hoping to Christ he had not embarrassed the man.

As if he could in fact read his thoughts, Alexander offered a warm, slow smile, his eyes glinting with it.

Goodsir could barely stand to look directly at such a shockingly open expression on him, but nothing in him could pull his eyes away.

He looked like a portrait of a man etched in soft pastels, the orange lamplight and flush of his face softened him, blurring his sharp edges, bathing him in heated light and colour. Such an expression Harry had never seen across his face before and he felt a lump in his throat.

“Forgive me, what a handsome name” he offered meekly, the whispering softness of his voice lost to the silence in the room, lost into the gentle invitation of Alexander’s face, so close now that Harry could almost feel the sensual call of his shoulders and arms.

He found himself suddenly very acutely wondering what it was to embrace this man, to feel him. Not to know just his name but to know his body. The protection and sturdiness and warmth it offered. He breathed unsteadily from his nose, finding himself catching his eyes on one of the Doctor’s coat buttons and watching his chest rise and fall steadily underneath.

“Well…now we are acquainted, Harry” his soft voice spoke from deep within his chest, it seemed to nearly vibrate out of him and wash over Harry, prickling the hairs on his arms and neck with a strange tingling.

Almost drowsily from it, Harry lifted his eyes once more to meet the man’s above him.

There was a split second where he stayed still like that, both men simply taking in each other’s faces, consuming one another with their eyes, Harry was overcome with such twinkling feelings rushing through him as he stood there looking up at this man whom he harboured utmost respect for, knowing that he viewed him as an equal. That they were both men. Alexander and Harry.

Just the sound of his name from this man was enough to send him drunk, to make him want to _live_ , not as Mr. Goodsir the quiet and unassuming assistant surgeon, but as _Harry_ the Scottish man with a home and a heart. With wants and desires. With thoughts and feelings so big they nearly swallowed him. He was giddy with the prospect.

“Thank you, deeply, Alexander” he breathed almost saddened in his joy, watching as the Doctor’s face broke into his lovely smile, settling well with the hearty blush of his cheeks.

And so, both men stood there, gazing at one another. Knowing one another. Open to one another. But not open in the way a cadaver would be dissected, not open in a way a surgeon would force openness upon a person, but beautifully open like flowers blooming in the sun.

What would it be like to be enveloped within this sun? to feel his heat and warmth and blossom in the rays of his acceptance.

Harry felt his heart thudding somewhere, but he was so mesmerised and entranced with the Doctor that it sounded as though it was in another room. Numb and hot and only able to look with heavy eyes, to think. To imagine. To barely breathe.

He hadn’t registered how his eyes had dropped to stare longingly at Alexander’s lips, as though in awe of the place his name had been uttered from, wanting to hear it again but also wanting to swallow it from him, to breath it from him, to extract it.

He had known he had these feelings for Alexander ever since he had laid eyes on him. It was difficult not to, with the man being as gentle and kind as he was. Such an immediate change from Dr. Stanley that it had certainly put him about. Such a tall man but with none of the forebodingness of Stanley, all charm and smiles and encouragement. Finally, a man to talk to who actually listened.

It wasn’t long before Harry’s pulse would quicken if he entered the sick bay, or he began to linger longer and longer after his work was done in hopes to catch the man in conversation. Every time this man would smile warmly and indulge him, as though he had all the time in the world. And every time Harry would return to his room with his hands sweating, his heart racing, a laugh teasing his lips.

And now here this man stood before him, so close he could pick up a scent of clean soap and woollen musk, and he stood there not as Doctor McDonald, but as Alexander McDonald. And he was so inviting, and so warm and had he gotten closer? Was he now looking down at Harry with such an aching gentleness that Harry’s heart jolted? This wasn’t a dream after all.

And there he was, looking down at him so close now that he felt warm breath ghost his face.

As if in a daze, in a stupor, Harry gazed up into those soft, warm eyes. They gazed back at him, eyelashes casting shadows from the orange lamplight.

He didn’t remember if he was breathing, couldn’t tell if he was even alive in this moment, all he could manage was to stare longingly as though spellbound. As if the Doctor’s entire presence was calling to him.

His eyes drifted down, down to his mouth again, watching it as though dreamily, waiting for it to utter something. 

He saw Alexander’s throat constrict as he swallowed, heard the click of it as he was so close. Perhaps he could even hear this man’s heartbeat, but all he could discern was his own, deep, thudding pulse where his lay in his own mouth.

The room had never felt smaller than it did in this moment, it already being small enough as it was. The shadows thrown across the walls and up onto the ceiling seemed to dance and sway ever closer, threatening to encase them both, save for the warmth of the lamp beside them. Harry found himself wishing the darkness would encase them, cocoon them, so that they may hide, become reborn with each other. Experience each other in the safe confides of the dark. To break free, transformed. 

“Harry…I…” it was a breathy sound, just whispering across the baritone of his voice, barely leaving his throat with the hush of it.

Harry felt himself draw in a breath and hold it, heart skipping.

Alexander was so close now, so warm and so enticing, the broad plains of his shoulders and chest tantalising. But more so, was his face. Gentle and kind and his eyes heavy with a desire which ensnared Harry in their depths, pulling him down into the deep dark waters of his gaze. But oh, the water was so warm and so alluring that Harry didn’t mind drowning. He let his head dip under those waters with gentle ease, swallowed by the richness and the heat.

Alexander’s mouth seemed to be caught slightly parted, as though he had intended to say something, but was struggling to remember it, lost to him. How welcoming those lips looked, how Harry’s name laid in his mouth so exquisitely, like a fine dessert. So sweet he must taste with his name on his tongue. Like a sugar cube melting there.

“Alexander…” his voice sounded distant to him, but a beautiful sigh in some far-off dream. A siren’s call. He heard rather than saw the Doctor’s breath catch in response.

There was a pull between them, an indescribable, immeasurable force. The beautiful and sweet lure of their bodies, of their mouths. Slowly the two men found themselves leaning into it, towards each other, slowly and mesmerised. Trance like, as though hypnotised by the sheer proximity of each other, the warmth of each other, the temptation to taste one another’s names on each other’s tongues.

Harry felt his eyes flutter closed, before he was even aware of what was happening, and both men sighed gently onto each other’s lips, uniting their bodies with a kiss. Soft and warm.

Their forms moved together as graceful as dancers, Alexander’s hands tentatively came to cradle Harry’s face, barely there, afraid that if he touched him that the spell would break. Starstruck by each other’s mouths. By the warmth and gentle pull and push of their lips, tasting each other finally, opening their bodies to one another. Sighing into each other. Feeling the spark of sensation yearning and curling for one another, knowing that they had wanted this for so long. Had needed this. They were lost within each other.

Having used their mouths to verbally discover one another by name, they now used them to physically enter each other’s bodies. To explore the softness of their lips, their tongues. As if to capture the origin of glorious speech and sound for their own in that moment, somehow feeling the other man pleading their name as if they could taste it like honey on their tongue.

Both men’s minds overflowing with the deep luxurious treacle of the singular word they conveyed to each other with the play of their lips and tongues, willing the name of the other man into each other’s mouths.

Feeling able to read each other’s thoughts in this moment, so plainly presented in the passion of their lips, intoxicated.

Harry found his shaking hands resting on Alexander’s waist, screwing into the thick wool of his greatcoat, the rag he had held dropped to the floor between them long ago.

Their bodies pressed so tightly together that they swayed as one entity, like a beautiful flower in a breeze. Lost in the interplay of their soft lips. Feeling gorgeously dizzy and drunk with it. If they did pull away it was barely a centimetre to breathe and sigh each other’s names softly before they crashed back together, feeling starved, feeling like they could never part again without breaking to pieces like shattered ice. So wondrously at home in each other’s warmth.

Alexander’s fingers found Harry’s curls and he hummed as they wound tightly but gently into them. Harry looped his own arms around Alexander’s middle with a sigh, the warmth and safety of his body cloaking him just as he had hoped for.

Both men so united and overcome with passion for each other, luring their bodies to press against each other with such intensity that they rocked on their feet.

Harry’s hand had to fly behind him to rest against the table so that they didn’t fall. Alexander pushed into the give and both men laughed into each other’s mouths as they staggered into the wood of the desk, propping themselves against it. Lord knows Harry’s knees shook enough that he welcomed it gratefully.

His head was spinning but deliciously empty, only filled with the silken, gorgeous sensation of McDonald’s lips and tongue upon him, his fingers stroking his hair gently.

Everything about this man was soft and gentle, including his lips, regardless of the stubble which scratched him along with it.

They parted minutely, a thin strand of saliva sparkled in the lamplight between them and they both chuckled breathlessly as it fell away.

Harry turned his big dark eyes up to look into Alexander’s again, having quite missed looking at his face. He found his eyes already meeting him, so soft and warm and creased with a smile. Perhaps they were tearful, but it was difficult to tell in the dim. His shadow fell heavy over him, almost looming but undeniably safe.

Both men gazed at each other, as though laying eyes upon something worthy of worship, and smiled dreamily.

“You’re beautiful, Alexander” Harry found himself whispering into the hot darkness between them, eyelids fluttering with the words as though his own voice had surprised him, sounding husky “I’m hesitant to say that I have wanted this for a very long time.”

His eyes bore up into the Doctor’s, deep and dark and twinkling with awe and passion, too sturdy in his resolve to even allow a blush to creep into his face; he truly believed he spoke the unabashed truth and it needed to be said.

He felt he needed to be opened to this man entirely. To have his heart exposed for him to see, without the cold steel of a lancet being involved. No surgery necessary here, they stood with each other not as surgeons but as men. And Harry wanted to be vulnerable, to unfurl for this man, to flay himself, to expose his soft underbelly. He wanted all this and much more than he could even put into words.

The primary feeling was a _need_ and that’s all he could distinguish, as though this man’s presence entranced him, called out to every fibre of his being.

Alexander stared down at him, puffed out a little gasp at the words Harry had whispered so sweetly, acutely feeling the importance of them. The weight of them. His eyes glistened and his face flushed, his mouth pulled into a bewildered sort of smile. He looked like a man verging on an ecstasy that he was afraid he couldn’t handle. Like something beneath him was brewing and bubbling and he wasn’t sure whether it would overpower him or if he would absorb it.

Harry watched him, his face so close that their lips still brushed minutely, and the Doctor’s stubble tickled him. He watched his face as though entrapped by it, unable to look away, bewitched by every crease, every mole.

He swallowed a little, eyelashes heavy, “I have coveted you, Alexander, from the moment I met you.”

Quickly Alexander’s hands pressed to cup Harry’s face more sturdily, warmly and gently. Pulling them together with an almost incensed passion, collided their mouths together again, nearly ferociously, hungrily.

The man moaned openly into Harry’s mouth, as though soothed of a great ache.

It was all Harry could do to grip him tightly as he was swept away on this new type of kiss, one of such extraordinary fervour that it shot stars behind his eyes momentarily.

Hot as the sun, deep and dark as water under moonlight. The moon and sun being in the sky at the same time, seeing each other, sharing each other, finding each other after years of hide-and-seek. Of day and night. Now resting together in one glorious orange-pink-purple sky. Both things at once, creating such unearthly gorgeousness that carried with it unspoken words of such tremendous feeling and desire that swallowed Harry inside it, lost in it’s vast ocean.

He couldn’t understand these words with language of his own, but he _felt_ them. He _tasted_ them. And it tasted like unimaginable bliss, sugar-coated and honeyed and caramelised all at once.

Just as he was losing himself entirely to this feeling, Alexander pulled back, their faces still so close that they breathed the same air between them, heavy lidded eyes gazing into each other as they scrambled for breath, Harry suddenly feeling very hot under his scarf,

“My sweet lad,” Alexander breathed, his forehead coming to rest on Harry’s and he could feel how hot his brow was, “I have also longed for such a thing.”

Harry could only smile breathily, such a feeling of velveteen warmth spread through him, enveloping him from the tips of his fingers all the way to his toes, buzzing through him. Both men smiled.

Their bodies heaved against one another and their eyes fell closed against it, just contented to feel the other man breathing against him, to hold his body close.

To know not only each other’s names but now their hearts, and they both felt freed. They felt _known_ and warmth in this place of such unknown, brutal cold. They had found a fiery hearth within each other in this terrifying land. Neither of them said this out loud, but when they kissed again it was felt more comprehensibly than they could ever have hoped.

The soft slip slide of their warm lips and delicate dance of their tongues did enough talking between them. The sighing and moaning and purring they issued into each other’s mouths was sufficient enough communication. The heady, drunken laughing they tasted from one another’s lips as they stumbled in each other’s arms in the small, low-lit room was better than any confession. The heat of each other’s bodies, the exploration of each other sufficed immeasurably for words.

Apart from, of course, the single murmurs of their names, relentless and prayer-like, enforcing each other’s existence privately between them.

And, in future, if Goodsir ever wished to be called Harry, he would be able to taste it freely from the tongue of one Alexander McDonald, to extract it from him, to breathe it out of his sighs, to swallow it from his lips. Shielded from the world of ‘Doctor’ and ‘Mr’ by the sensuality and warmth of him. The enticing call of his name echoing from the very depths of him, promising a safety and gentleness which bought them together again and again. To be a somebody rather than a disembody, at long last.

To be Harry.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let these two soft, gentle men softly and gently know each other and be happy. (Ignore what happens at Carnivale...)
> 
> Anyway I think it's important that I wrote this while listening to Kate Bush, so thanks Kate.
> 
> Please leave me a kudos and comment if you enjoyed!  
> 


End file.
